Over Me
by Dafmeister
Summary: It's taken some time, but Buffy's finally work it out.


**Title: **Over Me

**Email:** The Buffyverse is owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox and a bunch of other people who aren't me. No infringement of copyright is intended blah blah blah…

**Distribution:** I Need A Parrot, Mystic Muse, Shades of Grey, Slayer's Fanfic Archive, anyone else who wants it badly enough to ask me first.

**Rating:** PG-13

**Timing:** Winter after _Not Fade Away_

**Feedback:** Yes please, it really helps keep my morale up when my muse is being difficult.

**Spoilers:** Everything

**Author's notes: **Huge thanks to Kaz, beta extraordinaire.

I should point out that I haven't seen any of Angel Season 5 after the Wolfram and Hart Halloween party, so if I get anything wrong then that'll be why.

"In terms of a plan?" Spike asked, for once not bothered about the idea of deferring to Angel.

Angel cast a quick glance over his remaining comrades. Illyria was right, Gunn didn't have long left. "We fight."

Spike smirked. "Bit more specific?"

"Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon." He hefted his sword and looked out through the pouring rain at the approaching demon horde. "Let's go to work."

From a rooftop behind him, there was a sudden screaming roar, and two streaks of fire shot overhead.

"Man, I wish I could've seen Deadboy's face! I hear he _really _wanted that dragon himself."

"Yeah, well, it serves him right for starting an apocalypse without me!"

Walking through the ornate gardens, Xander looked sideways at the blonde Slayer beside him and raised a sceptical eyebrow. "You know, Buff, and no, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I can't exactly say I blame him. I mean, after that thing with Dana, he must've known he wasn't top of your "Friend and Ally" list any more."

"And whose fault is that? What the hell was I supposed to think?" Buffy's eyes lit up with some of the anger and betrayal she had felt toward her ex-lover. "It's not like he clued me in! Would it have killed him to call me? Or even a postcard! 'Hi Buffy, just so you know, I haven't been seduced by power and wealth, it's all part of my master plan to attack the core of Wolfram and Hart. Hope the weather's nice, Angel.' But no, that's too much trouble for mister big-shot CEO!"

"Whoa, easy Buffy, backing away, hands in the air…" Xander took a couple of steps back, surprised by her bitterness.

"I'm sorry, Xander." Buffy looked up at him sheepishly. "I guess I just expected more from him."

"Yeah." Xander's shoulder's slumped a little, his gaze dropping as he remembered the cost of that night. "Too bad about Wes."

"Wes, Gunn, nine Slayers…" Buffy felt fresh tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, the wound left by those deaths still felt raw. "And we got off easy. If Will and the Coven hadn't-"

"Let's not go there." Xander slid an arm around her shoulder. "We won, let's leave it at that."

"Yeah, we won. Thanks to you. I don't want to think about what you must've done to get those rocket launchers."

"Oh, that was easy. Scary thing about Africa – weapons _everywhere_. The hard part was getting them into the U.S."

"Yay for the Council of Watchers."

"Yeah."

They walked on for a few minutes in silence.

"Damn, it's cold!" Xander pulled his coat tighter around him and shivered melodramatically in the cold January wind.

Buffy smiled at her old friend's antics. "I kind of like it. I know it sounds weird, but I get why Giles was always complaining about the weather in California. I think I'd miss the variety too. I mean, they have actual seasons here!"

Xander laughed, and turned to look back the way they'd come. "Sure it isn't the new digs you'd miss?"

Pouting slightly, Buffy followed his gaze to the eighteenth-century stately home Giles had chosen as the new HQ of the Council. "Hey, you know what my life's been like! I think my inner princess deserves some indulging. Besides, it's not like I'm the only one there. With all the Slayers and Watchers on site, we _need_ six bathrooms."

Xander chuckled at that, before sitting down on one of the wrought-iron benches scattered through the gardens. "So, you're enjoying life as an instructor?"

"Yeah, it took a bit of getting used to, but I like it. I just miss having the same people around." Buffy sat down beside him and stretched her legs out. "Slayers and Watchers keep coming and going all the time, makes really getting to know people kind of difficult."

Xander sat silent for a few moments, watching his friend staring out over the estate to the woodland covering the other side of the valley. "Okay, Buffy, what's up?"

"Huh?" Buffy's head whipped around in surprise.

"C'mon, Buffy, I've known you long enough to realise when something's bugging you."

"Yeah." Buffy's gaze dropped. "There's some things I need to say, and I don't know how you're going to react."

Xander gave her a reassuring smile. "Try me. I promise not to run screaming." He thought for a moment. "As long as you're not getting back together with Spike, for that I reserve the right to run."

In spite of her anxiety, Buffy smiled at that. "No, I'm not getting back together with Spike." She toyed nervously with a button on her coat. "Since we left Sunnydale, and especially since I came here, I've had more time on my hands than I'm used to, so I've been doing a lot of thinking."

"About what?"

Buffy looked out over the gardens again, suddenly uncomfortable. "About my life, where I've been, where I'm going, how I'm going to get there…" Buffy paused, unsure how to explain. "The last time Angel was in Sunnydale, he asked me if I was in love with Spike. I told him I wasn't ready to love anyone – I had this whole stupid cookie dough metaphor going, told him I wasn't done baking yet. Well, I figured out how to finish the baking process. I had to get over him." She looked back at Xander, a slightly exasperated smile on her lips. "And as soon as I realised that, I _was _over him. I hadn't really loved him in years, I just loved the idea of loving him, the whole doomed romance thing."

"This is what you were worried about telling me?" Xander asked with laughter in his voice. "You thought I'd take it badly?"

"Hey! Quit mocking the revelation!" Buffy snapped, before laughing herself. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just pissed at myself for taking so long getting here. I mean, Willow moved on from Oz in a few months, and you bounced back from Cordelia… and got over me, I might add."

"Yeah, well, we didn't exactly have much choice." Xander replied, his tone subdued. "Oz left, Cordy dumped me for cheating on her, and with you, there was the whole rejection thing."

Buffy winced at the memory. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, I could have handled it better."

"Hey, my coping strategy wasn't great either, so lets call it even." Xander replied. "My point is, Will and me had to move on or just wallow in self-pity, and that gets old pretty fast. You always had some hope that it wasn't over with Angel, so you never got the closure we did."

"I guess. Still, five years seems kind of self-indulgent now." Buffy looked at him intently. "You really do see so much more than you let on, don't you?"

As she spoke, Xander's mind flashed back to the vineyard basement, and his empty eye-socket throbbed. "Yeah, I guess I do." He replied, his hand unconsciously moving to his eye patch.

"Xander…" Buffy's voice caught in her throat, and it was a moment before she could continue. "There's something else I figured out. I know why Caleb… hurt you. He wasn't just being sadistic. He knew something, something it's taken me eight years to realise. He knew you were our heart."

"I don't understand."

"You were the heart of the group. I never realised how important you were, how hard it would have been without you. You weren't the strongest, you didn't have magic or all the weird knowledge Giles has, but that didn't matter. The things that happened, the things we faced, they never seemed to touch you." Buffy gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. "You were always there with some stupid joke, and then everything was better, we weren't so scared. It was like we had something untouchable at our heart that meant we could always go on. So when Caleb got the chance, he attacked the heart. And he knew that seeing you die would have hurt us less than this." Her fingers gently traced the outline of the patch. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry? Buffy, what for?"

"For letting you get hurt. For letting Caleb use you as a weapon. For not realising how important you are years ago." Buffy managed a tearful smile. "Take your pick."

"Look, Buffy, I miss the eye, and I could do without the nightmares, but I'm okay with it. I mean, I know I've a made a difference to the world. How many twenty-four-year-olds can say that, huh? Present company excepted, of course."

Buffy couldn't thing of a thing to say, she simply threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

A couple of minutes later, they let go of each other and Xander asked, "Do you want to head back? I think I could use some coffee."

"Actually," Buffy replied, gently laying her hand on his arm, "there's something else I wanted to tell you. Last one, I promise, and this is the one I'm worried about."

"Okay." Xander propped himself against the ornate arm of the bench, his expression serious again.

Buffy started playing with her coat-button again. "This one pretty much follows on from the other two, and after I got them, it didn't take long to figure this out. For a long time, years, I've felt like there's something missing, a piece of me that I lost. For a while, I thought it was because of Dawn, that the monks had taken something from me to make into her, but that's not it." She took his hand, wrapping both of her smaller ones around it. "It's you. You're my missing piece; my world isn't whole without you beside me. I love you, Xander." She gently pressed her lips against his.

"Buffy, I-" Xander began, but Buffy immediately touched her finger to his lips, silencing him.

"Please, Xander, just listen to me. I know you're not done grieving for Anya, and I can wait as long as that takes, but… do you think you could ever go back to not being over me?"


End file.
